The Matchstick Girl
by Lady Jackdaw
Summary: A tale concerning feathers and hearts on fire.


_Princess Tutu is the property and copyright of Ikuko Itoh and Hal Film Maker; this fanwork makes no claims of ownership to said property and is not intended for sale or profit or commercial reproduction._

_Originally posted on my tumblr account._

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Once there was a girl.

She was small, tiny really, pale of skin and thin as a willow branch. Her eyes were the vibrant blue of a gas flame, and her little head was surmounted by a great quantity of bright red-orange hair. She was seldom still, and radiated a comforting warmth to all near her, and in short resembled nothing so much as a cheerful, dancing flame made human.

No, perhaps not a flame, not really. A matchstick, then. For her body was roughly the same shape as one, and though she was often clumsy she was not destructive, nor did she wantonly consume all that was in her path as payment for her warmth. In all her misleading delicacy, she instead lit fires of cheer and fortitude in all those she met. She brushed against their secret pains and with them produced a spark to burn away the tangled overgrowth of insecurities and despairs and formless fears within them, until they left her company carrying, like a lantern, a new and nourishing glowing in their hearts.

The Matchstick Girl's secret was her feathers. Sometimes they rested on her willow-twig body; sometimes they were threaded through her long braid and arrayed in a crown about her head; sometimes they lined the inside of her cloak, unseen until she threw her arms open in welcome. But they were always with her, soft and golden as votive candles, and what people did not know was that each feather was a hope. When she saw someone suffering, the Matchstick Girl would pluck a hope from her collection and this she would brush against their hearts to produce the renewing spark. Any pain this caused her seldom acknowledged, for the Matchstick Girl dearly loved to see people happy and smiling, an in time a new hope would grow in place of the old, so to her mind she never lost anything. She was happy.

But the day came when a strange cloud passed over the sun and a stranger wind blew over the land and the people forgot the Matchstick Girl. She would approach someone with her bright smile and her shining hope-feathers, only for them to stare at her blankly for a moment or two before walking away. They no longer saw her feathers, nor felt her particular warmth. The Matchstick Girl was confused, and soon started to worry what would become of the people still despairing when none would abide the brush and spark of her feathers anymore.

Yet her fear soon proved, if not unfounded, rather excessive. For the lantern-hearted people still abounded, and when they saw another overcome by pain they were able to crack open their own hearts and let the flame within reach out and catch, just as the Matchstick Girl's spark, in all that was bad and hurtful in the other. This process was less direct and often took longer, the lantern-spark sputtering and smoking, at times only seeming to worsen the situation, but in the end it too mostly prevailed.

Though she could not help but feel sad about no longer being part of their lives, the Matchstick Girl still rejoiced in their happiness and quietly withdrew herself. Perhaps it was for the best they no longer needed her, she reasoned, for now the people could seek comfort and strength from each other. And for a time, this thought consoled her and brought her nearly as much happiness as when she had offered comfort with her own hands.

But day by day, little by little, the Matchstick Girl began to lose her glow and shine. Her eyes slowly lost their sparkle, and she flitted and tripped and skipped less and less every day. She had not known _she _had relied just as much upon the hope-feather sparks as the people had. Because her own flame shone so strong and bright in her heart, it had needed to be constantly renewed; and it could only be renewed with the spark produced by hope burning away despair. Now, though, no spark renewed her, and her fire was sinking down into the embers. As it did, despair and fear began to grow and tangle within even her heart. The Matchstick Girl's flame was too small and weak to stop it anymore.

By the time winter had settled into the land, the last coals of her flame were barely glowing.

The Matchstick Girl had passed many houses glowing brightly from within, had walked beneath thousands of decorative lights strung above the streets. It all reminded her of the lantern-hearts of the people she had once helped. Yet she could not reach out and touch the inner warmth of these things: the lights were too far away, and she would not be welcome in the houses. For the first time, the Matchstick Girl felt herself interminably separated from all she had ever cared for.

She walked away from the light and the warmth. She walked through snow and shadow and starlight until she came to a lake, its surface hard and polished as a mirror. She knelt at the lake's edge and, for wont of anything better to do, plucked a feather from her skin; her cloak was long gone.

The Matchstick Girl regarded the feather for a moment then hesitantly, for it had never occurred to her before to do such a thing, brushed it against her heart.

Upon the surface of the lake-ice she saw: herself, sitting in a classroom of the local school, seeming more a part of it than she ever had before—and she had often pretended to be a normal schoolgirl there, but somehow her classmates could always tell she was not truly one of them, and the deception inevitably left her feeling guilty. As the vision flashed for the briefest moment, the Matchstick Girl felt the slightest tremble of a hope-spark. But despair was thick and tightly coiled within her and her flame had all but guttered out, and the spark did not catch.

She plucked another feather and ignited it against her heart: herself, carefully reviewing ballet steps as she walked home.

Another: the receiver of a telephone—an instrument she had never had cause to use—held to her face, undoubtedly some communication between herself and a friend.

Another: carefully watering a small pink flower, seeing it was still growing strong and healthy.

Another: a strong hand held out to her, the fingertips smudged with blue-black ink.

One by one, the Matchstick Girl pulled delicate golden hopes from her skin, letting each one spark and flame against her, only for it to go out without managing to sustain more than a moment's warmth, leaving her holding a scant palmful of pale ash. How could she not have noticed before that the feathers always burned to ash?

She shivered at the coldness that swirled around and through her, as though she were no more substantial than fog. There were no more feathers left, just her raw skin and the careless stars and the gelid dark.

Then in the next moment, there was warmth, rough, draping, and heavy. A cloak. It was some dark color she could not distinguish in the moonless night; it was not lined with feathers. A tall shadow crouched down beside her, the mist of its breath just visible by the starlight. Straining her eyes, she could barely see it was a young man.

"You little fool," he huffed. "You will catch your death out here." He reached out and adjusted the cloak a bit more securely around her shoulders. "Without any feathers you will freeze."

The Matchstick Girl realized she recognized the young man's voice. "I know you," she whispered. "And you know me. But how? Everybody else has forgotten me."

He shrugged. "I have a good memory."

"No." The Matchstick Girl shook her head and sank deeper into the cloak, every line of her hunched form emanating the implication that his reason was no reason at all.

The young man was silent for several moments, though she could feel his hidden eyes still on her. Finally, he answered, "It may be because you spent more time on me than on anyone else. You brushed many hope-feathers against me. They all produced a spark, and every spark became a flame, but truth be told I spent much time and energy trying to ignore it all."

"You never smiled," the Matchstick Girl replied, recalling the dark hair and serious green eyes of the young man she could not see. "I thought I had done something wrong, that I had failed to make you happy."

The young man's shadowy head shook back and forth, darkness sliding across darkness. "Not everyone smiles who is happy, just as not everyone who smiles is happy. You did not fail. It is simply my nature. But you are cold." He held out a hand to the Matchstick Girl, and the chill of the night carried the faint tang of ink to her nose.

She hesitated a moment, then extended her hand to brush her fingertips against his, not quite surprised when his own fingers curled around hers as she did so. There was some warmth there, beyond the warmth of skin, that rippled into her at the touch, not wholly like the stroke of one of the hope-feathers she would never grow again, and this too caught on something within her, igniting a tiny flame. The young man with green eyes and ink-stained fingers drew the Matchstick Girl to her feet, his hand steadying her as she stumbled on ever-clumsy feet. She saw the small house he had come from, which with its shutters curtains drawn and shutters closed had seemed just another shadowy nothing when she had first arrived at the lake. Now, the door was open a crack, and a line a warm light cut across the snow like a lighthouse beacon.

"There is a fire inside, and tea and bread, if you wish," the young man told her.

The Matchstick Girl smiled and felt the tiny flame sparked by his touch flare slightly larger. Without another word, they started towards the light.

*_To be honest, I'm not entirely sure what this is. A possible story Fakir wrote to turn Ahiru human once more? An odd little AU? A local legend formed by the citizens of Goldkrone as a pastiche of half-remembered Story dreams? Someone else will have to tell me ^^;_


End file.
